Mukurtu Hubs and Spokes

The seven regional Mukurtu Hubs are centers for support, development, and deployment of Mukurtu CMS to Community Spokes and other interested individuals and organizations in their areas. While the core Mukurtu team continues to provide support to anyone interested in Mukurtu, the Hubs take on local support and outreach wherever possible using their existing connections and regional expertise.

The open-source code for Mukurtu CMS is developed, managed, and maintained by the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation (CDSC) at Washington State University. The CDSC-based Mukurtu Team delivers core support to all Mukurtu Hubs.

If you are in a region supported by one of the Mukurtu Hubs, we encourage reaching out to them directly with questions about using and supporting Mukurtu 

The Mukurtu Alaska Hub is a regional hub that provides basic support and training in Mukurtu CMS to Native and non-Native organizations in Alaska. It was established at Huna Heritage Foundation in partnership with the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation at Washington State University. The Alaska Hub provides consultations, resources, training, and workshops for developing and maintaining Mukurtu sites.

We think about archiving like the way we gather and share our traditional foods. It takes a lot of time and resources to harvest, carefully process, and preserve these precious foods. Having put so much time and effort into the preservation of our traditional foods, we wouldn’t want them to collect dust on a cupboard shelf; they need to be shared and enjoyed by others. Similarly, our community’s histories and cultures that have been preserved by those elders and community members who came before us, should be treated with care and attention, shared, celebrated and enjoyed by current and future generations. Mukurtu CMS provides a platform designed for Indigenous communities to share their heritage digitally in ways that work best for them and help us honor our community’s unique histories and cultures.

The Mukurtu Alaska Hub is a resource for people new to Mukurtu CMS to learn more about its features and functions. If your organization is considering starting a digital cultural heritage preservation project or currently has one underway, the Mukurtu Alaska Hub can provide valuable assistance.

For more information, visit https://mukurtu-alaska.libraries.wsu.edu/

Contact: rcontreras@hunaheritage.com

The California Native Hub, a regional Mukurtu Hub based at the American Indian Studies Center (AISC) at UCLA, supports the development of the Mukurtu in tribal communities and organizations across the California region. We are not restricted to state borders, however, and have an understanding that First Peoples’ geographies precede these state and national borders. We honor geographic relationships to each other and the land.

The California Native Hub provides: 

  • Localized training/workshops for developing and maintaining Mukurtu sites.
  • Mukurtu testing on our “sandbox” or demo site.
  • Documentation of “user stories” based on the needs of their community users (Spokes), ensuring that future development within Mukurtu is driven directly by community needs as they define and document them. 
  • A place for communities to meet at times on UCLA campus. 

    For more information, visit https://canativehub.ucla.edu

    Contact:

    The Mukurtu East Hub is not institutionally affilaited. We rely on federal, state, and independent grants to do our work. 

    In addition to supporting communities with their independent Mukurtu work, the Native Northeast Research Collaborative represents tribal communities in greater Southern New England Indian Country — Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, and the historical communities that migrated west to Wisconsin. We offer access to the tribes’ long historical record by providing collaborative access to images, transcriptions with annotations and interactive biographies of primary source documents written by, for, and about the Indigenous peoples within our region. Our Mukurtu platform serves as a method of digital repatriation, of adding a Native voice to the archival records and sharing community stories.

    For more information, visit https://www.nativenortheastportal.com and https://www.thenativenortheast.org 

    Contact:

    Kaipumakani is the Hawaii and Pacific Mukurtu Hub. Hosted by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Department of Linguistics.

    Kaipumakani is building a community of organizations and individuals dedicated to the preservation of digital cultural heritage in Hawai‘i and the Pacific. We are committed to maintaining an open, community-driven approach. If you or your organization is engaged in digital cultural heritage preservation activities, or if you are considering starting a project, please join us as a partner!

    The Kaipumakani project promotes sharing of digital heritage through the following services for Hawaii and Pacific Communities: 

    • Training in the use of Mukurtu CMS 
    • Assistance with deploying Mukurtu CMS 
    • Assistance with digital heritage collection management 
    • Assistance with digitization projects

      For more information, visit https://kaipumakani.org

      Contact:

      The Mukurtu Midwest Hub is a regional hub supported by the WiLS Digital Projects staff. They provide training in Mukurtu CMS to tribal and non-tribal cultural heritage institutions in Wisconsin and the western Great Lakes states. Staff also supports a Wisconsin Native Nations Digital Records Collective that sustains and builds on established community networks and trusted relationships with Wisconsin Native Nations. The collaborative works with tribal cultural workers to share information and resources that advance their communities’ digital stewardship work. 

      For more information, visit https://mukurtu-midwest.libraries.wsu.edu and https://www.wils.org/mukurtu-midwest

      Contact:

      • Erin F.H. Hughes – Digital and Community Outreach Archivist ehughes@wils.org  
      • Kristen Whitson – Digital Specialist and Consortia Manager kristen@wils.org

      Mukurtu West is a regional hub site supporting the development of the Mukurtu Content Management System (CMS) across communities in Oregon. Based at the University of Oregon, we specifically serve Oregon’s tribal nations, as well as institutions and programs that host their content and collections to ensure the ethical hosting and dissemination of materials according to Indigenous protocols. Based on the needs of tribal communities, we can provide services, training and assistance for hosting digital cultural heritage, including photographs, recordings, language materials, and educational curriculum. Due to very limited staffing, our capacity for projects is determined on a case-by-case basis and continued grant funding. After ongoing consultation visits, our priorities are based on the specific needs of tribal communities and informed by current research and grant projects within and with Native nations. 

      For more information, visit https://mukurtu-west.libraries.wsu.edu/

      Contact:

      The NSW Australian Mukurtu Hub mission is to support skill developments of Indigenous data stewardship in line with Indigenous data sovereignty principles. It develops tools and advice, through research partnerships with Aboriginal organisations and communities. It does this by working to support local community agendas and research needs in unceded Australia. 

      For more information, contact https://mukurtu-australia-nsw.libraries.wsu.edu/

      Contact:

      Community Spokes

      The Hubs work with dozens of community and organizational Spokes, and hundreds of individuals, and their support networks continue to grow.

      A selection of Spokes who chose to have their involvement publicly known are listed here:

      Alaska Hub

      Huna Heritage Foundation Digital Archives

      New South Wales, Australia Hub

      Tranby National Indigenous Adult Education and Training

      Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation (Hunter Valley, NSW)

      US West Hub

      Confederated Tribes of Siletz

      Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs

      University of Oregon Libraries Special Collections and University Archives

      University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History

      Northwest Indian Language Institute

      California Hub

      Carrying Our Ancestors Home

      Haudenosaunee HARK (Haudenosaunee Archivak Repository of Knowledge)

      Karuk Tribe

      Pala Band of Mission Indians

      Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians /
      Fresno State University

      Tongva

      Hawaii and Pacific Hub

      Feleti Barstow Public Library (American Samoa)

      JFS Library Archives and Special Collections (Hawaii)

      Hula Preservation Society (Hawaii)

      Kanekes (Baduy) (Indonesia)

      Kwaio Archive Portal (Solomon Islands)

      Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum (California)

      dAXunhyuuga’ – Eyak Language and Culture Resources (Alaska)

      US Midwest Hub

      Ho-Chunk Nation Department of Heritage Preservation: Language Division

      Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians

      Tribal Libraries Archives and Museums (TLAM) Class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

      Wisconsin Native Nations Digital Stewardship Collective

      US East Hub

      Herring Pond Wampanoag of Plymouth

      Native Northeast Research Collaborative

      Mohegan Tribe, Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, Golden Hill Paugussett Indian Nation, Nipmuc Nation, Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head/Aquinnah, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe, Chappaquiddick Wampanoag Tribe, Fall River/Pocasset Wampanoag People, Brothertown Tribal Nation, Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians